One God Many Religions

‘“In your nothingness I hope to find everything,” said Faust to Mephistopheles, and so it was; after the Mothers, Faust became free to follow his own instincts.”

I owe so much to the teachings of Goethe’s Faust!

In The Beginning was the paradox: How can God/perfection and creation/imperfection coexist? Paraphrasing Robert P. Scharlemann, “what cannot be thought is that the world is the being of God when God is not being deity; the world is, in the time of not being, a moment in the being of God. (p. 89-90, 1982).

Short answer to the paradox above: One God, many religions, why— because God backs into existence; that is, by virtue of being not-God in the form of “being-what-is-not-while-not-being-what-is” God becomes, in the verb sense, “free to be,” and, by implication, in the noun sense, free to be the “God of all creation,” i.e., the logically implied God of creation. This state of affairs suggests to me the original significance of John Paul Sartre’s definition of pre-reflective Cogito (the double movement of conscious reflection). But, of course, in Sartre’s Cogito there was no God. As Sartre says: the transcending For-itself …”is a being such that in its being, its being is in question in so far as this being implies a being other than itself.” (Being And Nothingness p.801) Yet, in so far as Sartre’s pre-reflective Cogito is a product of freedom, i.e., a product of universe, life, and the symbol-generating movement of free thought, it reflects both the backside of God (the time of not being) and the “face of God” (implied self-Logos). Absent the “face of God” knowledge—language with its lexical, syntactical, and contextual designations, science, ethical behavior, existential meaning, and religion(s) —could not exist.

The above realization—that I am both D.H. and divine—was a very emotional event. Eventually, I came off of that high, but there was no going back after that. Put another way: God resides in my temporal present as an “all knowing awareness,” but I do not (usually) experience awareness that way. Instead, I experience my own beliefs, concerns, intentions, and deeds. God (implied God), however, resides in my temporal present in the same way that images reside in figure/ground Gestalt representations, e.g., whether you see two faces or a vase depends on which part of the drawing you see as figure and which part as background. This figure/ground relationship is what lies behind my personal relationship with God! bwinwnbwi

For more see: http://bwinwnbwi2.wordpress.com/page/19/

Structure Time Logos

A couple days ago (I think it was Valentines Day) I went to my blog to see if I had any visits. My history was blocked (maybe it was a Valentines Day thing), but on the history page I found a request to for three blogs, the first tagged: logic, structure, time, second: logic divinity, worldview, science divinity connection and third: God, physics, freedom, worldview, reverence, justice. This request was probably computer generated, but that doesn’t matter; what matters is I thought okay (I had/have given up posting—old age, depression, etc. etc.). Anyway, after checking to see how much I could throw together from previous posts, I have decided to oblige; so here are three more posts (probably my last three, but I’ve learned to never say never).

Structure

A long time ago, I wrote a paper on Structuralism where I began: We must first look at the various structural models that have been described in linguistics (Saussure and Chomsky), anthropology (Levi-Strauss), psychology (Piaget) and philosophy (Foucault). It was a long paper (back then I had no simple answers). Later, I stumbled upon a simple answer. After reading the book, Order Out Of Chaos by the Nobel laureate, Ilya Prigogine, I ran across the following quote:

“Whatever we call reality, it is revealed to us only through the active construction in which we participate.” Ilya Prigogine

In language study the concept of “irreducibility” is a universal concern of structuralist thought. For Saussure, this desire becomes fulfilled in his systematic and holistic interpretation of language. It started with language but Saussure's idea that language can be understood synchronically, frozen in time, has inspired many structural investigations into the “hidden code” that other proponents of structuralism believe lies at the heart of myths, literature, and history.

Ernst Cassirer, Herbert Mead, and Jean Piaget, the three who, in different fields, ran with this approach all responded to the synchronic/diachronic approach to human experience. The conclusions of all three men, in the end, converged (Cassirer/epistemology, Mead/sociology, and Piaget/psychology). Whereas Cassirer found the origin and evolution of symbolic meaning to reside in the “work of man,” Piaget, in a like manner, put the origin of structure and the symbolic content that it generates, in the “organisms capacity for action.” (Mead did something very similar). However, let Howard Gardner's description of Piaget’s psychology speak for all three here:

“Piaget reached a crucial insight: the activity of an organism can be described or treated logically, and logic itself stems from a sort of spontaneous organization of activity. At this time he also formulated the notion that all organisms consist of structures--of parts related within a whole--and that all knowledge is an assimilation of a given external into the structures of the subject.” [Howard Gardner, The Quest for Mind, Piaget, Levi-Strauss, and the Structuralist Movement, 1973, p.54]

Time

“Time flies!” or “Where did the time go?” are not just mere expressions, rather, they are actual descriptions of the “time of mind” experience. “Time of mind” really does go faster as we get older. Here’s why: The structure ~bb (discontinuity occurring in continuity) implies the mind-space where “identity/affirmation” occurs. What this means is that while we live, we accumulate, process, and store information. Accumulated meaningful associations (over time) speed up this processing. In other words (all other things being equal) the mind of the forty-year-old processes more information and uses that information more efficiently than a thirty-year-old (quantitatively, time flies). Or, even more to the point, think of how long it took to get through your summer vacation between your third and forth grade school year and compare that memory with the way you experience time today!

What is time? Jean Paul Sartre (Being And Nothingness) and Martin Heidegger (Being And Time) wrote chapters on the time of mind experience, i.e., produced existential (ontological} explanations of time, but explanations of time go beyond philosophy. Science also has trouble dealing with of the time of mind concept; so again, I ask what is time?

In addition to the economic value of time (time is money) and the personal value of time—life spans, time is also considered to be a measurable structure of the universe, a dimension (four-dimensional space-time continuum) where events occur. This is the realist's view. Periodic events and periodic motion have long served as standards for units of time. Examples are the apparent motion of the sun across the sky, the phases of the moon, the swing of a pendulum, heartbeats, etc. Currently, the unit of time interval (the second) is defined as a certain number of hyperfine transitions in Cesium atoms.

Science deals with time on three levels. There is the time, which following from Newton’s laws of motion, is used to predict the future of moving objects. It terms of our solar system, this is the time that allows for space travel. Reflecting on this time, the French mathematician Laplace declared that the existence of God was an unnecessary hypothesis. He realized that the initial conditions at the birth of the universe predetermined everything, thus everything becomes predictable, -- both backwards and forwards. There is also the time encountered in thermodynamics and in the biological sciences—a unidirectional arrow of time. According to the second law of thermodynamics energy dissipates while entropy (disorder) increases, or, in other words, things decay. A third level of time is found in Relativity and in quantum mechanics. This time gets measured by the t-coordinate in an undifferentiated continuum, and, according to Denbigh, “if this coordinate is ‘taken for real’ as has been the tendency among many scientists and philosophers, the familiar distinction between past, present and future, so important in human affairs, comes to be regarded as a mere peculiarity of consciousness” (Kenneth Denbigh, Three Concepts of Time, 1981, p. 4).

Another view is that time is part of the fundamental human intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which we sequence events, quantify the duration of events (the intervals between them) and compare motions of objects. In this view, time does not refer to any kind of entity that "flows" or to "a container of events.” This view is in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz and Immanuel Kant and, as it is unique to human consciousness, it permits the "act of becoming" that is lost in other time-concepts, “acts of becoming” that almost always get taken for granted, i.e., free will.

Logos

What separates humans from other animals (some animals can be taught, on a remedial level, to express meaningful symbols) is the experience of number, identity, language, etc., in a word, symbols. As has been pointed out by Piaget, the symbol is a product of cognitive structure, which, in turn, is a product of natural structure. The spatial and temporal structure of events is, according to Piaget, also the result of all this structure.

The cognitive structure of discontinuity occurring in continuity, identifies the source of conceptual representation--symbolic meaning, it also explains why our thoughts should be able to represent the world outside our mind, especially when it comes to the application of mathematics to physical theories. Both the world and our ideas are created from the logic of existence, the logic of natural structure. In other words, there is a necessary correspondence between mind and world. The laws reflected in nature correspond to the laws of mathematics reflected in our mind since both are based on the more fundamental law of the logic of existence, the logic that creates the temporal structure of mental events. Thus, predictions concerning the external world of events are possible because the evolution of the universe takes place in this space that separates, embeds and connects—connects to the “space of logical implication,” the space that scientists, mathematicians, and logicians use to quantify truth from not truth.

When non-being occurs in being, self-consciousness is produced and becomes, by implication, conscious of itself. Analytically speaking, this condition identifies the source of logical contradiction which, in turn, denotes the original precondition for the evolutionary development of language and mathematics. We are born into a world of knowledge and knowing with the ability to individually accelerate this knowing process by asking “questions” --the highest form of human freedom. No one can steal this God given gift from us. This divine gift not only moves us toward the truth that:

"Whoever degrades another degrades me. And whatever is done or said returns at last to me" (Song To Myself, Walt Whitman)

it also leads us to the ultimate realization--that we are one with God's presence in the here and now.

Pictures always help simplify what is difficult to comprehend, so with simplification in mind, I will attempt to describe how an increase in freedom (the synchronic axis of freedom) liberates the conscious experience of a physical event. To begin: Let the V shape represent the image of freedom. Let the left side of the V represent the empirical world (the negative pole of freedom's axis) and the right side represent the liberation pole (also negative). At the V vertex the empirical and liberation poles meet. Where the two negative poles meet Affirmation is implied. This, to be sure, is a very constrained state of existence, but still, it is open enough to allow for the expansion of freedom. Now label the vertex, the V bottom, as ~~b (not, not being). “Negations negating negations,” on this level, define the entire V structure. Thus, it is on the back of negation that new levels of freedom arise--are liberated.

The first thing to notice about the V is its openness. This openness moves the content of existence forward; in fact, one is tempted to say that “to be free” is why existence exists. Science does a good job explaining the content of existence, but it is severely challenged when it comes to explaining the “otherness of existence,” or the liberating process that structures existence. As existence and liberation move up the V, freedom expands. Freedom expands diachronically at each level of structure (think evolution here), but, over time, lower level structure becomes “content” for higher level structure. At each “step up” freedom yields a new synchronic (frozen in time) structure, one that, although different from the lower structure, still preserves the integrity of the lower structure while structuring a whole new dimension of freedom. This process continues until it reaches the level of freedom that occurs among symbol generating, language speaking life forms. Yes, that be “us.” So let’s take a look at this process that moves existence forward and expands freedom in a little more detail.

Let the V image represent the liberation of the “otherness of existence.” Let one side of the V represent the empirical world (aesthetic continuum) and the other freedom. Identify the vertex, the bottom of V, as ~~b (not, not-being). The “double negative” characterizes the entire V, and implies that which exists outside the V-- the Affirmative Ideal, or, more to the point, an affirmation of the Affirmative Ideal. In other words, the V and all that it represents/manifests, via the “double negative,” connects/embeds everything to everything else, first through the empirical world and second through the Affirmative Ideal. In terms of “quantum strangeness” this state of affairs is revealing. But, this is only the first structural level; the second level occurs somewhere above the V vertex.

On the next freedom level, on the empirical side, let ~b represent the opposite of life. Life is a temporary condition, interrupted, eventually, by decay and death (the necessity of death, however, represents the conservation of the integrity of the Affirmative Ideal vis-à-vis the space that separates, embeds, and connects). Across from ~b (death), let b, the reciprocal counterpart to ~b, on the freedom side of the V, represent life, or, more specifically, life’s journey toward more evolved life forms. Life, through adaptation and diversity, expands and becomes more complex. Freedom, now on two different levels, continues to evolve until another level of freedom is liberated.

Let b~b~bb represent this highly evolved form of structured existence. We are familiar with this structure because it represents the participatory moment of a conscious self (its counterpart, on the empirical side of the V, or the b~b of b~b~bb) becomes the physical embodiment—brain—of this self-conscious. With the liberation of freedom, at this level, we experience the participatory moment of “time of mind.” On this structural level, a new freedom is produced, the freedom to freely participate in freedom. In other words, out of the embedded experience of discontinuity occurring in continuity emerges the subjective aim of a conscious self—the source of all identities, the source of symbolic representation. Freedom not only increases at the level of self-consciousness, the level where civilization begins, it mushrooms--and the V shape grows larger (and wider). This new freedom erupts into the historical/cultural environment of social interaction and social organization, which, over time, produces modernity (and the negative effects of modernity). All this too, is part of the liberation process as self-consciousness continually seeks more freedom.

In a nutshell, freedom and logical form demonstrate a co-dependent relationship; that is, freedom and logical form develop together. When freedom and logical form merge in the participatory moment of a conscious self, identity (eventually full blown self-consciousness) is the result, and, in the wake of identity, imagination follows. More specifically, the possibilities contained in the participatory moment of a conscious self are immense, but the immediate consequence is that identity is preserved in the midst of constant change.

To get an even better picture (three posts) of the implications of Logos:
http://bwinwnbwi2.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/picture-of-self-new-model-of-the-observerobserved-relationship/

Science Divinity Connection

Science Divinity Connection, Worldview, Logic


We must shift gears here and think of the universe not as something that consciousness defines, but, rather, as something that defines consciousness. The idea that consciousness pervades the universe is not new. The Greek philosopher, Heraclites, believed that a non-human intelligence or the Logos ordered everything. For Heraclites, all the discrete elements of the world were organized into a coherent whole. The Stoics, using this idea, turned the Logos into God—the God that is the source of all rationality. But, those ideas were developed some 2400 years ago. Can the Logos be equated with the universe and all its elements today? When the noted logician, Alburey Castell, was confronted with a similar question, he responded:

“Suppose the sciences divided into four major groups: the mathematical, the physical, the biological, and social. Suppose the philosophical disciplines also divided into four major groups: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics. Where among these does logic belong? Is it a fifth in either group? Or a subdivision of some one of the eight divisions? It seems to me to be neither of these, but somehow common to all divisions. The nerve of every science and every discipline is inference, or argument. In every science and every discipline two questions are always being asked and their answers sought: If these facts are granted, what follows? From what prior facts do these follow? That is If P, then what? And, Upon what does P rest?” (A College Logic, 329)

Before I begin to answer the question --Upon what does P rest? I want to give a little background information on the law of logical contradiction.

“The laws of logic,” says the Dictionary of Philosophy, “are regulative principles governing the pursuit of knowledge and the construction of scientific theories. Seen in this way, logic is the most general of all sciences… To assert a contradiction would be to depict things as being one way and yet at the same time not that way. But nothing can be p and not-p at the same time. To believe a contradiction is thus to hold as true something that is necessarily false” (Antony Flew, p.210).

What the rule of non-contradiction means in practical terms is that if a contradiction is found in a work of reasoning then that work is of little or no value. On the other hand, if a reasoned work identifies the condition for the possibility of any contradiction whatsoever, then that work would be valuable indeed!

Oh, by the way, freedom’s dialectic (the V structure) is the answer to the question --Upon what does P rest? This experience (the most free level of the V structure) opened the door to meaningful symbol creation, the door that swings forward into the creation of language, myth, religion, art, and theoretical knowledge…and into the creation of the civilizing processes that we call “civilization”. But, not to forget, all of this rests on the pre-existing liberating processes of liberation that have come together in human consciousness, and, ultimately, rest on the ground condition of the Affirmation Ideal, i.e., affirmed indeterminate Divinity. Freedom’s dialectic is at once bond and liberation, bond as Divine Affirmation and liberation as “the otherness of existence progressively becomes freer!”

What God’s freedom is defining here is God as Immanent (the phenomenal world) and God as Transcendent (the God of all religions). All we can know about Transcendent God is that God exists. The space of logical implication tells us that much. On the other hand, we can know a great deal about God’s Immanence because that’s what we deal with on a day-to-day basis. Everyday, as a self-conscious being, we participate in inquiry, analysis, conscience, and imagination. Now, let’s take a closer look at what the form of ~bb, of b~b~bb entails (self-consciousness expressed freedom).

What separates the second from the third level of existence/freedom is the experience of number, identity, language, etc., i.e., the potential to create and communicate through symbols. In so far as the human animal is defined by God’s non-being, humans become aware of non-being, and out of this awareness, by implication, arises the “mental given.” This “mental given” is experienced as the object pole of consciousness while “not being this mental given” allows for conscious reflection on the content of consciousness. Functionally, ~bb, or the cognitive experience of discontinuity occurring in continuity, is very close to, if not identical with, both Sartre’s pre-reflective Cogito and Piaget’s center of functional activity. Discontinuity occurring in continuity, or ~bb, not only identifies the source of conceptual representation-- symbolic meaning, it also explains why our thoughts should be able to represent the world outside our mind, especially when it comes to the application of mathematics to physical theories. Since both the world and our ideas are a product of the logic that structures all existence, there is a necessary correspondence between mind and world. The laws of mathematics, physics, and nature are all grounded in the same structure, the structure that separates, embeds and connects—connects to the “space of logical implication, connects to the liberation of God in the here and now. Probably the most difficult (and uncomfortable) thing to apprehend here is that all reality/existence is an aspect of the non-being of God,—the “otherness of God.” I didn’t invent this idea; there is a literature devoted to it. Unfortunately, I have not read much of it. Actually, maybe I did invent this idea, since I came upon the literature only after I had developed my argument for the structure of existence. Anyway, Robert P. Scharlemann, edited a journal devoted to this topic. Below is a quote from that journal:

The idea that God is free to not be God is unusual, but not unique. In the journal, Deconstruction and Theology (1982, p. 89-90), Robert P. Scharlemann, in the article The Being of God When God is Not Being God, adds some commentary to this idea when he says: “The thesis I should like to propound here is that, in the theological tradition of this picture (the concept of finite being as ens creatum) is that the world is itself a moment in the being of God; what cannot be thought is that the world is the being of God when God is not being deity, or the being of God in the time of not being.”

It follows from this view that an infinite amount of diversity is both permitted and discovered in God’s freedom not to be, a diversity that, ultimately, is at one with God. What makes this possible (and logically consistent) is the fact that all existence is grounded in one structure, the structure that separates, embeds and connects—connects to the space of logical implication, connects to the liberation of God’s non-being in the here and now. Another way to state this state of affairs is: all existence exists as being-what-is-not-while-not-being-what-is. This “way of being,” in addition to characterizing God’s freedom, also characterizes the liberation process that evolves God’s freedom (God becomes more free as freedom evolves) and this freedom, ultimately, achieves consciousness of physical, biological, and psychological events.

God Physics Freedom Worldview Reverence Justice

I’d like to say a few words concerning God, and then let a dialogue that I wrote a while back say the rest. The dialogue is something I had hoped would happen (no such luck) between Mike (an old schoolyard friend of mine) and I when we were bicycling the Canadian Maritime Provinces. The Affirmative Ideal is what allows people to believe in God; that is, they believe because they can! God certainly exists in affirmation, but God also exists in the flesh, yours, mine, and all the rest of humanity. God exists in all the rest of nature too, but God is made self-aware in self-consciousness. Think about that; the more you do the more the barriers between God and You (self-consciousness) fall away— it’s not an unpleasant experience.


In Every Human Being God Pulses--The Depth And Center Of All There Is


“Okay,” I said, “but what I’m about to say is not exactly user friendly. It’s about a different kind of God, one that, as far as I can tell, nobody is familiar with.”

“Well, does God have foreknowledge or not?” Mike responded.

“He knows everything that is known,” I said. “It’s hard to describe, but He knows it all without foreknowledge.”

“You’ve got my attention now,” Mike replied, “How exactly does He pull that off?”

“It’s in his freedom,” I said. “In nature, life, and culture we find God’s ‘self-expression’, and that--is an affirmation of God and God’s freedom.”

“Oh, this ought to be good,” replied Mike, “what kind of image is that? Is He still the old man on high, divine worker of miracles, dispenser of rewards and punishments, or am I missing something?”

“That image is a bit outdated, wouldn’t you say?” I said.

“Well is He limited by time or not? replied Mike.”

“No,” I said.

“Is He omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient?”

“Yes to all three,” I replied.

“Well, I rest my case. It’s the same-o, same-o,” Mike responded. “We humans are bound by law and limited by death. We don’t like it, so we imagine a God without limits. We get sick, but God does not. We are caught in space and time—not God. We face horrendous hardships and suffering—not God. Both Freud, and Feuerbach before him, had it right; god is a product of our own desires because, as cripples, we need a crutch. We need god, but he remains forever out of reach. Religion was born out of that need. God is our security blanket. In reality God is based in false hopes and promises, and exists only in our dreams.”


“There’s more to the story than that,” I responded. “The theologian, Paul Tillich, had a different idea. In fact, he believed the image of a superhuman God should be replaced by a more internalized ‘depth image.’ Instead of believing in an external God, he chose to believe in a God that was the ground of all that is. God, for him, became ‘infinite center,’ a ‘presence,’ a feeling, a reality, an opening to all sacredness and divinity. That’s kind of what I’m talking about when I talk about God, but I came to that image in my own way. And, by the way, as far as gender is concerned, God doesn’t have any.”

“That sound’s a bit pantheistic to me,” Mike responded. “So who or what is this god?”

“Pantheism is part of it, but there’s more,” I said. “I have always been attracted to those images of deity that identify God with nature. Spinoza, Lao Tsu, Whitman, Black Elk, all those guys believed nature to be sacred. God is nature, but nature is also an expression of God’s freedom, and further, God’s freedom is something ‘other’ than God. It is God when God is ‘not being God’--God’s own non-being. I know that sounds strange, but I can’t help it. That’s the way it is.”

“Sure,” Mike responded, “cut to the chase why don’t you, and we’ll see just how strange that idea really is.”

“I’m getting there,” I said. “All nature is a ‘way’ of non-being. And, this non-being is peculiar in that it is not a singular thing. It is dualistic in character, and takes the form of a double negation. In this double negative we find God as affirmation. We find God as freedom, and we find God as environment. Just as a receptacle is defined by empty space, non-being defines God. God, in the form of the ‘other’, is both God and freedom, and through reasoned analysis we can derive the meaning and significance of God. In fact, both freedom and reason, on some level, are present in all non-being, all nature.”

“That’s the chase,” Mike replied. “That’s it?”

“I told you, my god is not user friendly,” I said. “Freedom exists at every level of nature. It also goes through changes, and these changes represent freedom at more complex levels. After a sufficient level of complexity, freedom becomes less restricted. When it experiences its own double-negatives in the space of higher negation, it becomes alive. In that sense, freedom is always ‘stretching itself’ and ‘reaching out’ for more freedom. At a sufficient level of complexity, inorganic nature becomes organic, and freedom becomes freer. At death, nature’s double negation must be conserved, so higher expressions of freedom dissolve into less free states, and, ultimately, into God because God is affirmed in double negation—in being non-being. This is my religion. This is what I believe. God is not separate from nature, life, and/or culture. That’s how I understand the meaning and significance of God.”

“What has culture to do with anything?” Mike said. “Its just part of life. Hell, social insects have culture!”

“True,” I replied, “but they do not bring self-consciousness to culture; consequently, they are not free to expand that culture into self-determined orders of complexity. Only humans can do that. Humans are free in a way other animals are not.”

“That’s bullshit,” Mike said. “Culture keeps us alive. It’s the same with insects. It’s a matter of degree, not kind, and the same goes for what you call freedom.”

“Suit yourself,” I replied, “but at least hear me out. According to the way I perceive God, human culture is a product of God’s freedom. In culture, God acts out the self-aware expression of freedom. This higher-level experience is two levels removed from God’s least free expression. This freedom brings with it an ‘empty box,’ a box of negation—a box attached to consciousness. Other animals are boxless. Consciousnesses--self-consciousness—uses this box to see what’s not, and ask ‘why?’ With the good comes the bad, however. This box also permits ruthless people to value greed over knowledge, violence over peace, and vengeance over beauty. Without this box, though, agreements for the purpose of securing peace and preserving beauty would not be possible. Judgments would not be possible. Self-expression would not be possible. The history of civilization would not be possible. In fact, the history of civilization is the history of this box, the history that records the struggles for liberty and the freedom to overcome that which prohibits liberty. When we seek the origin of freedom, we end up in religion.”

“You think religion can save the world!” responded Mike. You think if only people believed as you do, they would act differently? How ignorant! How pretentious! Who is shortsighted and stubborn now?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “Actually, I try not to think of it in those terms. It’s too scary. After searching all these years, it’s enough for me to have a security blanket that works for me.”

“You deserve an ‘at-a-boy’ for that,” Mike replied. “Everybody’s entitled to their beliefs; that is, as long their beliefs do not deny the beliefs of others. Even if you wanted to change the world, in my opinion, you couldn’t, not with what I just heard. The truth is I don’t understand a thing you just said. But, if it’s any consolation, I did enjoy hearing it. I don’t know why. How about another beer?”

“Sounds like a winner,” I replied, “but indulge me for just a little bit longer. I will be specific.”

“If you must,” Mike replied, “Waitress, two more beers pa’ lease.”

“First, God is the inescapable depth and center of all there is. The immanence of God is what I call freedom and this immanence is present as nature. When freedom achieves self-consciousness it is able to name and create truth and beauty. In fact, it calls us forward into life, love, and wholeness. The biblical Jesus was, most likely, so completely transformed by his awareness of the divine that his thoughts, words, and deeds were recognized as divine. Not surprisingly, the gospel writers saw him as the Son of God, and translated his story into the Passion Play that it was, -- it is. My religion has nothing to do with ‘revealed truths,’ and it is not about heavenly rewards or punishments. Rather, it is simply a way to perceive and process the God experience, the experience that pulses in every human being. As far as proselytizing goes, all I want to do is open people’s minds to the idea that ‘terra firma’ is hallowed ground. I mean that both literally and figuratively. In our relationship with others we share that ground, and that ground becomes sacred or profane depending on how it is shared. That is what I believe, and that is really the end. Now I’m finished.”


God And Love


Since the Enlightenment, minds at the cutting edge of intellectual development worship at the logic and reason alter. Emotional disturbances are either irrelevant to intellectual progress or worse-- prohibit it. Our emotional nature, particularly in this Age of Reason, has been relegated to the irrational part of the animal brain. But not here—not in God’s love attribute!

For me, affirming God is easy, however, getting to know the meaning of the relationships behind that affirmation is the all-important next step. Fortunately, Martin Buber was there first, so I’ll let him do most of the talking here. Affirming God, for Buber, is no more difficult than affirming the ground out of which duality arises, and Buber understood this. In his book, I And Thou, he alludes to the spiritual significance of this affirmation when he says:

"Dimly we apprehend this double movement --that turning away from the primal ground by virtue of which the universe preserves itself in its becoming, and that turning toward the primal ground by virtue of which the universe redeems itself in being --as the metacosmic primal form of duality that inheres in the world as a whole in its relation to that which is not world, and whose human form is the duality of attitudes, of basic words, and of the two aspects of the world. Both movements are unfolded fatefully in time and enclosed, as by grace, in the timeless creation that, incomprehensibly, is at once release and preservation, at once bond and liberation. Our knowledge of duality is reduced to silence by the paradox of the primal mystery" (1970, p. 149).

In freedom’s dialectic, double negation, life, and the implicative affirmative of the not-me-self may be thought of as representing Buber's turning away from the primal ground, while double negation, death, and the physical event may be thought of as turning toward the primal ground that conserves and redeems being. Affirming a transcendent God then becomes no more difficult than affirming the ground out of which duality arises, but in doing so, one is also affirming God’s immanence—God’s thou-ness.

In the human being the I-thou, I-it, aspects of the world arise. It is in “presence,” a presence other then I-it, that the eternal You achieves the power of articulation—the God-presence that occurs in and through human relationships. In, I And Thou, Buber illustrates this point often and with elegance:

“…in every You we address the eternal You, in every sphere according to its manner. All spheres are included in it, while it is included in none.” (p. 150)

“Of course, God is ‘the wholly other’; but he is also the wholly same: the wholly present. Of course, he is the mysterium tremendum that appears and overwhelms; but he is also the mystery of the obvious that is closer to me than my own I.” (p. 127)

“…in truth, there is no God-seeking because there is nothing where one could not find him. How foolish and hopeless must one be to leave one's way of life to seek God: even if one gained all the wisdom of solitude and all the power of concentration, one would miss him.” (p. 128)

“The word of revelation is: I am there as whoever I am there. That which reveals is that which reveals. That which has being is there, nothing more. The eternal source of strength flows, the eternal touch is waiting, the eternal voice sounds, nothing more.” (p. 160)

“The encounter with God does not come to man in order that he may henceforth attend to God, but in order that he may prove its meaning in action in the world. All revelation is a calling and a mission.” (p. 164)

“God embraces but is not the universe; just so, God embraces but is not my self. On account of this which cannot be spoken about, I can say in my language, as all can say in theirs: You. For the sake of this there are I and You, there is dialogue, there is language, and spirit whose primal deed language is, and there is, in eternity, the word.” (p. 143)

Bottom line here is that communication occurs between God and the infinite regress of Being. God is there in my relationship with nature and God is there in my relationship with human beings, but the highest order of that communication resides in the I-thou relationship. That said, one question remains: If we are already in a God relationship then why all this fuss concerning communication?


The Passionate Need To Express And Understand Life’s Meaning Drives (For Some) Their Mental Life


For me, the God qua God idea is barely comprehensible. Emotion is another thing all together, though. Without emotions consciousness would not exist. Thinking and feeling are so entwined in consciousness that some have argued language development follows from the human need to express complex emotions. William James held that “stream of consciousness” is comprised of both thinking and feeling elements. Feeling, for James, participates in knowledge and understanding. Echoing this sentiment, in his article, Reason and Feeling, Professor Creighton explains:

“In the development of mind, feeling does not remain a static element, constant in form and content at all levels, but…is transformed and disciplined through its interplay with other aspects of experience…Indeed, the character of the feeling in any experience may be taken as an index of the mind’s grasp of its object; at the lower levels of experience, where the mind is only partially or superficially involved, feeling appears as something isolated and opaque, as the passive accompaniment of mere bodily sensations…In the higher experiences, the feelings assume an entirely different character, just as do the sensations and other contents of mind.”
(Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy In A New Key, p. 100)

Of course, there will remain an inefficacy concerning emotion and language. Language is after all a poor medium for expressing one’s emotional nature. But, when looked at holistically, it is certainly possible that myth, ritual, art, language, and the abstract logical necessities encountered in mathematics and science are products of one’s passionate need to express and expand meanings. One might even go as far as to say that the passionate need to express and understand life’s meaning drives one’s mental life.

Staring into the heart of the Milky Way galaxy on a warm summer’s night, it is impossible not to feel the emotion. Or, again, picture yourself perched on a mountain peak, the setting sun’s soft yellow rays illuminating the range of peaks before you. In very special moments like these something happens, something sublime! What could possibly be more sublime? Perhaps sharing the sublime with others! It is, I believe, the need to share the sublime that answers the question Why Exist? But even on this mountaintop Buber was first:

"That you need God more than anything,” says Buber, “you know at all times in your heart. But don't you know also that God needs you--in the fullness of his eternity, you? How would man exist if God did not need him, and how would you exist? You need God in order to be, and God needs you for that which is the meaning of your life." (1970, p. 130)

In freedom’s dialectic, where self-consciousness, life, and duality—the affirming structures of God—become transparent to mind, divine love emerges. Love is, according to the great mystic sage from India, Aurobindo (1892-1950), “a union of self with self, soul with soul, and spirit with spirit.”